CAA calls on the Home Secretary to stop Polish neo-Nazi band playing in London on Saturday
Polish neo-Nazi band Legion Twierdzy Wroclaw is set to enter the United Kingdom and play at least one gig in London. Campaign Against Antisemitism has alerted the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police Service, requesting that the band be prevented from entering the country. The gig is currently due to go ahead on Saturday night in Dagenham, under the name of “United Skinheads”, which appears to be a name made up especially for the event.
The band is believed to be part of the dangerous international neo-Nazi “Blood and Honour” network which recently organised a weekend rave in Cambridgeshire which attracted neo-Nazis from all over Europe. Attendees performed Nazi salutes in response to calls of “Sieg Heil” from the stage and sported swastikas, including a Union Jack superimposed with a swastika. Vehemently antisemitic songs were performed, including “Once a nation, now we’re run by Jews” before declaring: “It’s time we drove out the traitors” — clear criminal incitement to racial hatred.
Campaign Against Antisemitism was alerted to Legion Twierdzy Wroclaw’s gig by journalist Colin Cortbus, an expert on the far-Right. We immediately made representations to the Home Office, calling on the band to be banned from entering the country, and the Metropolitan Police Service.
The band’s music is intrinsically antisemitic. For example, Cortbus reports that one of their songs, Przetrwać by Zwyciężyć, appears to use coded neo-Nazi language to call for the anihiliation of the Jewish People: “I will not rest until the vanishing of the whole tribe, the Khazars [a coded euphemism for Jews], The war lasts for generations. The flame that does not go out…My Aryan Homeland”.
Cortbus has also found that Legion Twierdzy Wroclaw used Auschwitz death camp entrance gate slogan “Arbeit macht frei” on its Facebook page, which is also filled with photographs of and information about the Nazis. The band also uses a coded number, 1488, which means “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. Heil Hitler.”
The far-Right was once considered a spent force in Britain but for some years it has been re-establishing its foothold, aided by neo-Nazi and fascist organisations across Europe and the United States. British neo-Nazis must not be allowed to gain strength through links with foreign neo-Nazi groups, and we are making very clear our demand that existing rules should be enforced to ban neo-Nazi groups from entering the country.
